


My Only Option

by Wallfloweralways



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bisexual Steve Rogers, Captain America: The First Avenger, Discussion of Bisexuality, Established Relationship, Gay Bucky Barnes, Insecurity, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:28:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22753243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wallfloweralways/pseuds/Wallfloweralways
Summary: When they get back from liberating the camp, Bucky has more on his mind than the ache in his muscles or the blisters on his feet. Her name is Peggy Carter, and from where he’s standing, she’s the obvious choice.A little look at some of Bucky’s feelings towards Peggy, his insecurities and emotions surrounding Steve’s bisexuality. I’m not anti Peggy at all - I mean, what a babe - but I thought some reassurance was called for.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Kudos: 47





	My Only Option

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first published work so I thought I’d start light. Just a little hurt/comfort drabble :) enjoy!

Bucky’s hands tremble slightly as he peels the filthy clothes away from himself, lifting his grey shirt over his head to reveal a myriad of purple and blue; the crash following the race, consuming, corroding. Somewhere thrumming deep inside him another war waging: Peggy Carter, her ebony face in the light, eyes wide and wanting. Behind him, Steve lies on his back, one hand thrown over his eyes. Wanting? No, he’d never had to deal with that before. For years he’d felt a level of frustration almost, that no one quite saw little skinny Rogers for who he was, but here she was, wanting him. Wanting him from Bucky.   
Of course, she didn’t know that part. The part that gave him a ten year head start. No one got to know that part, not now, not back in the days of secret hide aways during English lessons they’d have to make up for or the ones he’d come home drunk from the smell of Stevie and cider and sweaty bars, not ever. And he knew why - knew they’d never see each other again, knew it was automatic defeat, knew it was suicide - but still deep inside the gnawing thought of claiming. He wanted to rough him up, run his hands through his hair, leave bruises and bite marks and all the things that Steve never admitted to showing off before but there are no women at camp, he reminds himself, no alibi. They’d know, and then Bucky couldn’t protect his boy with all the charm in the world. 

“Buck?” 

He wasn’t sure what to say, how to approach this... insecurity blooming in his chest. He felt this tinge of anger that had no name besides, perhaps, jealousy - jealousy at Peggy Carter for wanting what was his, jealousy at Steve who could have her - but deeper, sadder. The same feeling he’d gotten the first, and only, time a girl had come after him before: I couldn’t bare it if you left but I wish you would leave, you can too, so why waste that luck?

“I don’t-” Bucky started uselessly, voice as quiet as it had ever been. “You and I ain’t the same Stevie. I never had an easy option, I never had a better choice. But you? Don’t tell me if I were any other bloke you wouldn’t rather be in with Peggy Carter?”

“Buck, what the hell?!”

“No I’m serious. Come on Stevie, she’s one hell o’ a dame, and a smart one two. You could do worse than an agent who knows how to talk.” Steve wants to stop him, doesn’t want to hear it, but his voice is stuck in his chest and refuses to come out. “And you could, too. That’s the thing Steve. You can do the house, wife and 2.5 kids easy, a life with no questions or hiding and a medal of honour to take home. What you got now, eh? A body in a bed you can’t tell anyone about. That ain’t a life Stevie, we ain’t never fooled ourselves it was so don’t start now.”

Now Steve is angry, properly, absolutely. “Don’t give me that crap, Buck, alright? It’s never been just that to me.”

“Well one of us gotta be realistic then. There’s no future here, I’m a dead fuckin’ end Steve.”

“Okay, well I’m there. To the dead end, no sooner. The end of the line, remember? You don’t get to decide what’s an easy option, what’s living, cause the way I see it there ain’t never been another option for me.”

They sat in silence a few minutes, Steve staring at the shape of Bucky’s shoulders and bowed head silhouetted in the lamp light, like a lone mountain risen from the sheets between them. Somewhere in the centre of his chest, he thinks about clay, about moulding: the machinery of muscles drawing into the column of the man’s spine and splaying out into the planes of his back, the flurry of hair on the nape of his neck where he hadn’t shaved in a while and the flair of ribs curving away into the darkness. He’s skinnier that he use to be.

“You know the worst day of my life?” Steve spoke gently to the mountain. “That day we first went to that dive near the tram station, the blue room where we scored those beers without ID.”

That seemed to move him. Dropping his shoulders slightly, Bucky swung his head to the left so a sliver of cheekbone and raised eye brow lit up golden in the light, “Lenny’s? We had fun that night, you danced.”  
“Yeah, I swallowed two pints to shake the feeling when I saw the men in there. Saw how they looked at you, that is.” The words rang bitter in the hollow tent. Bucky swung quickly, startled at his lovers admission, but didn’t interrupt. Steve could see the questions on his mind but didn’t stop to let him voice any. “I mean, I was used to the dames lookin’ at you like the first hot meal in weeks, but there’s power in being the only choice. But that night, for the first time, I saw a sea of choices. An’ suddenly I wasn’t the one with power at all. And when you told me you use to go by yourself I-”

The brunette looked white, paler in the dim lamp light than he’d looked on that table Steve had rescued him from. “Stevie, it wasn’t like that. You’re not just some-”

The penny dropped.

Steve smiled a soft, kind smile. He was always like that in fights when he knew he was right, never boastful like Bucky, always decent right to the core. “Now stop being such a woman and get in here. It’s cold as hell.”

Slowly, Bucky obliged, and shimmied under the thin woollen blanket of the other man’s bed. Back home in Brooklyn they’d gotten so use to sharing it felt like second nature to fall into the configuration of hands and feet and elbows that let them sleep, together but not over heating. However, Steve was now twice the size. Eventually, Bucky let himself curl around his side, one arm thrown over, head on his chest, listening to his heart thump quiet and true. Deep inside he knew this wouldn’t be the last time he worried - especially now his lover looked like bloody Hercules himself - or even the last time they fought, but for now he was content with the warmth spreading through him.  
As the weight of the miles and the fighting and the worry turned his limbs to stone, Bucky felt a hand clasp his in the darkness. “I want a future Buck, with you.”

And maybe he was dreaming it, but deep down he thought, take that Peggy Carter


End file.
